Ervand Abrahamian

Ervand Abrahamian, an Armenian born in Iran and raised in England, teaches at Baruch College in New York. He has also taught at Princeton, New York University, and Oxford University. He is the author of Iran Between Two Revolutions, The Iranian Mojahedin, Khomeinism, Tortured Confessions, and (with Bruce Cumings and Moshe Ma'oz) Inventing the Axis of Evil: The Truth About North Korea, Iran, and Syria. He was one of the three individuals (along with Noam Chomsky and Nahid Mozaffari) whom David Barsamian interviewed for his book Targeting Iran. Abrahamian is currently working on two books: one on the CIA coup in Iran and another, A History of Modern Iran, for Cambridge University Press.

The U.S and Iran have been moving towards a head-on collision for the last seven years. The expected collision will most probably take place in the final months of the Bush administration. The course has been set by two irreconcilable goals. Iran is adamant about gaining full mastery over nuclear technology — especially uranium enrichment. The U.S. is equally adamant that Iran should not be allowed this mastery on the grounds that the latter’s real intentions are not to use such knowledge for peaceful purposes — as Iran claims — but for weaponry.